The Tenth Commandment
by Medie
Summary: Thou shalt not covet thy neighbor's wife...Kyle learned that well. He only wishes he could have listened.


Title: The Tenth Commandment  
  
Fandom: Jake 2.0/Pretender  
  
Pairing: Kyle Duarte/Other  
  
Rating: PG  
  
Spoilers: the Pretender 2001 movie.  
  
Word Count: 994  
  
Notes: For the Unrequited Love challenge. The original character in the story comes from a Pretender 2001 AU Trilogy Shattered which can be found on my ff.net author page or my website. It's not necessary to read it but...it's good background. in the King James Version, the 10th Commandment includes the signature line of the story, "Thou shalt not covet thy neighbor's wife. Also? There are three Kyles mentioned in this fic. (Oh the fun) Kyle Duarte is of Jake 2.0. Of the other two Kyles? Kyle the elder is the deceased brother of Jarod & Laura. Kyle the younger is her son. named after her brother. ;-p Confused yet? The similarity in names has amused me to no end.  
  
"The Tenth Commandment"  
by M.  
--------  
  
In retrospect, he realized he'd been planning it from the get go. Considering in the back of his mind just what to do, just in case. He'd long since lost his innocence about the innocence of the United States government. The party line was one thing. The reality was quite another. So, without even consciously deciding, from the moment he realized just what Jake Foley and his new nanite friends had unwittingly landed in the middle of, Kyle had begun considering ways out. Methods of escape that could be put into motion at a moment's notice.  
  
It took a random glance at an old picture to remember the most obvious one. But, all things considered, he had a good idea of just why he'd been unable to consider it before.  
  
Thou shalt not covet thy neighbor's wife...  
  
The moment he'd met Laura Ballinger, Kyle had known he was in trouble. A beautiful, graceful, redhead, Laura had an easy smile and little artifice. She was simply what she was. Unfortunately, what she was, was the wife of Eddie Ballinger, a coworker at the NSA. Eddie, like his wife, always had a smile. For an NSA agent, he was remarkably open and friendly. He'd been a great friend and Kyle had trusted him with his life. He'd known Eddie trusted him in turn but he didn't realize how much until one night when the truth came out.  
  
Pretenders...  
  
The Centre...  
  
Simulations...  
  
At first glance, the things Eddie had revealed to him had seemed absolutely absurd and Kyle had said as much. A demonstration had ended that quickly. Watching your friend hack into some of the government's most secretive files as easily as you would check your email tended to have an affect on disbelief. Watching the DSAs, recordings of Laura's time at the Centre, had convinced him. Eddie had similar DSAs, Digital Simulation Archives, but they didn't risk keeping the records in the same place at the same time. Though it seemed the Centre was not hunting them...they didn't want to take the risk.  
  
It was a heavy responsibility, being let in on the truth of someone's life and it wasn't something Kyle took lightly. Eddie and Laura had taken a great deal of risk letting him beyond the illusion that was their life. It had stung for a while, the realization that one of the very things he admired most about them was a deception. Everything about Pretenders was appearance...until he looked into Laura's eyes and understood. Some things couldn't be Pretended. Some things were true.  
  
Thou shalt not covet thy neighbor's wife...  
  
Those words had become a mantra. For as long as he'd known her, Laura Ballinger had always had an air of vulnerability about her. Innocence. As if she simply didn't understand the world she lived in. Which made sense with their revelation...Laura, like Eddie, had lived her formative years a prisoner of an organization that had used her remarkable intelligence in ways it had never been intended. They had made her, and Eddie, a party to murder. Countless murders. And, emerging into the real world that they'd been used to hurt in so many ways, Eddie and Laura seemed hellbent on protecting it. Making things right. At the same time, they were confounded by that world. The simplest things fascinated them.  
  
Raising their son had become an education in things neither one had even understood. Kyle would never forget Eddie's determination to catch up when Laura had discovered she was pregnant. He'd envied the man his ability to get lost in the process, watching him discover everything from teething rings to Barney...he'd taken the information in with a skill and a childlike fascination that Kyle could never remember having. Even when he had been a child.  
  
Likewise, Laura had been the same and Kyle had found himself helping them both. When Eddie couldn't be with his wife for something, it was an automatic reaction to turn to Kyle...Laura had confided, one day with a sad smile, that she'd had a brother named Kyle. She hadn't known him well. He'd been a prisoner of the Centre as much as she and another brother, Jarod. But, she supposed, it made her more willing to trust him than she ordinarily would.  
  
It shouldn't have, but the idea that she viewed him as a sibling, even by proxy, had stung and again, Kyle had repeated his mantra to himself...  
  
Thou shalt not covet thy neighbor's wife...  
  
Years later, when Eddie was murdered, and Laura's brother Jarod suddenly turned up, with the Centre on his heels...Kyle truly understood what they'd confided years before. The Centre, Simulations, Pretenders...it was all too real...and Laura was at the heart of it.  
  
Laura, shattered by the loss of her husband, had wilted under the pressure. He'd found himself approached by Jarod, a tall, mysterious man with eyes so very similar to Laura's, and asked to help her. As it turned out, the Centre had thought her dead. Now, they knew differently and they would be coming...she, and her son, Kyle - named for both her brother, and her friend - needed to disappear. With the formidable skills of a Pretender it should have been easy for her, but she had lost the will to use them.  
  
Finally, they'd convinced her for her son's sake, she needed to and he'd lost her.  
  
Now, she was a ghost. A voice on a phone line, emails bounced off hundreds of servers around the world...But, he knew without fail, if he contacted her, she would help. Jake would disappear as if he'd never been. Laura would see to his safety, if only because Kyle asked. But, he hadn't. Not yet. Jake didn't need it yet, and seeing Laura again...it would bring it all back and the spectre of Eddie would still be there...  
  
So Kyle could only sigh and murmur, "Thou shalt not covet thy neighbor's wife..."  
  
Finis 


End file.
